In a newspaper interview, Dariga Nazarbayeva,
head of the Khabar TV news agency and daughter of the Kazakh president,
talked about the agency’s staffing, funding and the issue of censorship.
She went on to outline her idea for the creation of a Kazakh TV channel
which would be set up along the lines of Russian Public TV (ORT). The following
are excerpts from an interview published by the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya
Gazeta’ on December 9:
This is Dariga Nazarbayeva’s first appearance in
the Russian press. And our interest in her does not stem at all from the
fact that she is the daughter of Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
At the age of 32, Dariga successfully manages Khabar,
Kazakhstan’s leading television news agency. It is this agency that provides
the bulk of the news for national television, thus exerting a perceptible
influence on society.
Q: How did you end up at Khabar?
Nazarbayeva: Before being invited to work
in television, I had no journalistic experience. Therefore, when, at the
beginning of last year 1994 , Leyla Beketova, former head of Kazakhstan’s
television corporation, made me this offer, I thought about it for probably
half a year. I asked my father for advice, and he said give it a try.
Our mass media’s first reaction to my appointment
was negative, to put it mildly. Arguments started flying about monopoly
on television. People do not voice these fears anymore. Apparently our
work has convinced people of something.
Q: Not everything was easy in all probability?
A: The first and main problem was the lack
of professional staff. This is a common problem for the entire state television
system in Kazakhstan. Because of low salaries—mine for instance is only
3,000 tenge—many professionals have left state television over the past
few years. Some went over to commercial television, others moved to Moscow,
and some went into advertising. We currently have a staff of 95. They are
mainly people of my age. Of the older generation, only two or three professionals
remained.
Q: How do you feel working with young people?
A: You know, it was more difficult for me
to work with older people. In our culture, you respect those older than
you and listen to them. I think, though, that young people, my peers, have
a better grasp of the problems of our time and perceive them in the same
way. Our policy is to attract young people. We particularly pin our hopes
on the graduates of the KazGU Kazakhstan State University school of journalism,
and not just in assessing this school’s students but actually working with
them. But money remains a major stumbling block.
Q: By the way, your agency is funded from
the state budget. Is this an ideal model for financing a news service?
A: I see several aspects to this question.
Every country should have state television, whose task is to protect state
and public interests . In this sense transferring television into a joint-stock
company or into private ownership makes it unsuitable for the task. On
the other hand, state television should not be poor, it cannot exist without
budget support.
Q: Doesn’t state financing deprive you of
journalistic independence?
A: I believe that television exists for viewers,
speaks about their problems, expresses their interests. Objectivity is
very important for television. It is sometimes difficult on a state channel.
We are a publicly-financed organization, and once in a while we are reminded
of this.
Q: Is there censorship of your material?
A: No. Not now. But in the beginning I did
encounter this. I think they have simply written us off now. Sometimes
they correct our texts, but mainly on style. My journalists cannot complain
of censorship. Of course, nobody will permit us full freedom in broadcasting.
There are certain boundaries that we must observe. It is rather like an
inner censor at work.
Q: And how are your relations with the National
Agency of Press and Mass Media Affairs?
A: You have just touched a sore spot. It looks
as if the agency intends to subordinate state television to itself. I would
rather not talk about it right now. Of course, I have my own opinion on
this matter, but the question has not been settled yet.
Q: Would you like to create your own TV channel?
A: I would. But it should not be a service
of the state TV. We need to create something similar to the Russian Public
Television ORT channel. I know that there are a few people in Kazakhstan
toying with this idea; it is in the air. I think it could be a joint stock
company. I have asked ORT colleagues to send us all their charter materials
and I am studying them now.
Speaking of the time frame, perhaps this service
could materialize within the next six months. This project depends on our
ability to use Intelsat. As is known, the complete Intelsat-based television
broadcasting system will only go on line in the summer of next year 1996
at the earliest. This would be an alternative channel broadcasting to the
whole republic. I would like to bring in the best people from state television
and work closely with independent commercial channels. That way, I think,
we could form a combined channel that would be interesting for everyone.
The Center for Media Law and Policy Studies will
be opening its doors, shortly, at the Faculty of Journalism, MGU.
The project, funded by a USAID grant (through Internews and the Center
for War, Peace and the News Media), was designed primarily to encourage
research, provide training to professionals, and to enhance the teaching
of media law and policy in Russian law and journalism faculties.
Andrei Richter, editor of this newsletter’s Russian
counterpart, and a faculty member at the School of Journalism at MGU, is
the first director of the project. He was a visiting research scholar at
the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University and research
director at the Russian- American Press and Information Center in Moscow,.
He is establishing an advisory board in Russia and, as well, an international
advisory panel. Dean Yassen Zassoursky and Professor Monroe E. Price
are co- chairs of the advisory board.
One major objective of the Center is fostering the
“rule of law” as part of the infrastructure of a free and independent press.
Such a discipline, the Center argued, is necessary to establish a generation
of media managers and executives, potential policymakers and legislators
and researchers and a generation of faculty as well with a respect for
the institutions of press freedom.
The Center has strong ties to the press itself,
partly through collaboration with the Glasnost Defence Foundation. Aleksei
Simonov, head of the Foundation, was one of the architects of the Center.
The school for media law students, established by Simonov and Yuri Baturin,
will be resuscitated as part of the Center’s activities.
The Center has, as a major focus, training faculty
at law and journalism schools throughout Russia so that they can offer
media law and policy courses in their schools and work with media professionals
in their areas.
Last summer, in preparation for its official launch,
the Center held its first training session for teachers of law and journalism
students. A set of materials on Russian media law in a comparative perspective
was developed by Professor Peter Krug of the University of Oklahoma.
This summer, there will be a second such session, with a further testing
of the Krug casebook.
The Center’s mandate is to include the development
of teaching and training materials in what might be called “commercial
media law,” including advertising law, intellectual property law , entertainment
law and the legal and contractual aspects of the sale and organization
of private stations and networks.
In this sense, a founding principle is that the
financial viability, sustainability and independence of Russian media is
dependent, in large measure, on the legal structure that evolves. This
includes the development of contract and private law practices that are
healthy and enforceable, the establishment of patterns and customs that
are necessary for financial viability and independence and for the evolution
of a scholarly and objective tradition which yields knowledgeable managers
in the private sector and a pool of informed government officials.
The Center will encourage research on media law
and policy issues through its own programs and conferences and through
the Newsletter. It will try to play in Moscow something of the role
that is played by similar entities in the United States, such as the Institute
for Tele-Information at Columbia, and media policy studies centers at Duke
and the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Center is establishing relationships with other
counterparts, such as the European Institute for the Media in Dusseldorf,
the Institute for International Communications in London, the Institute
for Information and Media Law at the University of Amsterdam, the Netcom
Institute in Leipzig, the Audiovisual Observatory in Strasbourg and the
International Institute of Communications in London and the Freedom Forum
for Media Studies in New York. The Howard Squadron Program for Law, Media
and Society at the Cardozo Law School is a founding partner of the Moscow
Center.
The genesis of the Center is complex. Much
of its origins lies in the work of the Commission on Radio and Television
Policy (Carter Commission), directed by Professor Ellen Mickiewicz.
Mr. Richter was on the staff of the Commission and Professor Price was
a member. The Eurasia Fund provided grants that enabled early work
in teaching and the development of the Russian language newsletter.
A number of publications are being planned. A symposium in the Cardozo
Arts and Entertainment Law Journal, scheduled to be published next month,
deals with Russian media law issues, including a comprehensive study of
defamation decisions. The Center is also co- publishing a treatise
on the Russian media law by Mikhail Fedotov. This spring, the Center
will publish the proceedings of its first conference, on possible amendments
to the media law. A book on the President’s Judicial Chamber on Information
Disputes is being planned. Consistent with its teaching program,
the Center is commissioning materials in the media law and commercial media
law areas.
In the next months, the Center is planning small-scale
conferences on such subjects as a new cable television law for Moscow,
libel and defamation law in Russia, an anniversary symposium on the 1991
Media Law, and the recently instituted Russian advertising law.